


Reverse the Snow

by frondescence



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2017-05-29
Packaged: 2018-09-09 13:41:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 11,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8892847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frondescence/pseuds/frondescence
Summary: ‘Hunted, haunted, harrowed.' Anders is the Herald of Andraste, and few know the truth.





	1. Prologue: Vigil's Keep

He found the Warden-Commander perched high on the stone wall of a tower overlooking Vigil’s Keep. She had a thin linen cloak wrapped loosely around herself; even in late summer, the Ferelden night air blew damp and cool. From behind, there was only one sure indication that it  _ was _ her, rather than some stray guard or lost recruit: the silver hair in loose limp strands around her neck, gleaming in the moonlight. 

The Hero of Ferelden, slayer of the archdemon, savior of Circle Tower, of Orzammar, of so many things. Anders wondered what she was thinking. She was an odd woman, cold and resilient and rather intimidating at times, yet a good listener, with more empathy than she tended to let on.

Besides, she’d given him a kitten, and held a marked distaste for templars. That made her half alright in his book.

He made his way over to the wall and leaned against the weathered stone edge; it was cold to the touch. Below, torchlights and firelights flickered and gleamed as the people of Vigil’s Keep went about their business. Distantly, he could hear the high, rhythmic clanging of a blacksmith’s hammer.

The Warden-Commander did not react to his presence, until he gathered a grin and greeted her (far too informally), “Lyna,” and she barely inclined her head and nodded. “Anders.”

“You know where it’s nice this time of year?” Anders began, launching straight into a conversation that he anticipated to be rather one-sided. “Rivain.” He saw Mahariel’s mouth twitch in the barest shadow of an amused smile and, encouraged, he forged on. “I hear the white beaches at Llomerryn are warm.” 

“Mm,” was all Lyna gave by way of reply. 

Her sparse response nearly stopped him, but despite his playful tone, he really was quite adamant about getting this out. After all, he owed her more than just bolting in the middle of the night with no explanation, as tempting as that was.

“In fact,” he said, drawling the words out slightly, “it’s about time for me to go. The Warden thing has been fun, but…”

Lyna’s gaze met his for a flicker of a moment, then she went back to staring straight ahead, as if something lay out in the distance that Anders could not see.

“I won’t stop you,” she said, calmly, almost graciously, and though it was not the reaction that Anders expected, he couldn’t say he was  _ completely _ surprised. 

“You mean you won’t report me to the templars as soon as I go?”

Lyna gave a  _ tch _ . “I’d be a rather sorry person if I did.” She shifted, slightly, easing into a more comfortable seat on the rough stone. Her voice was hollow when she continued. “You’ll never outrun the Calling, but I won’t make you stay here. You don’t want to feel trapped. I understand.”

“You do,” Anders replied, and it came out as more of a statement than a question. He felt a strange, pleasant queasiness; he was very unaccustomed to being  _ empathized with _ . 

“I never wanted to be a Warden,” she said, matter-of-factly. “The Joining was a life-or-death choice for me, and if my Keeper hadn’t  _ ordered _ me to join, I would have chosen death.”

It was strange, almost anticlimactic, to hear these words from the famous Hero of Ferelden, and Anders thought that suddenly she looked exactly as small as she was. 

“Why don’t you go back?” he asked. “Leave all this? The Blight is over, after all; job done.” 

Lyna gave a small, wistful smile. “I thought about it, very seriously. But I’ve--changed. My clan will always be my family, but I don’t belong there anymore.”

“And I suppose a certain  _ adorable _ little king’s bastard had nothing to do with that?”

Lyna snorted, and Anders counted one more victory among the few in his mental “Make the Warden-Commander Laugh” book.

“Maybe,” she said, “but Alistair alone wouldn’t have kept me here.” She sighed, rubbing a frayed edge of the cloak between her fingers. “Somewhere along the way I really did become a Warden. Despite my...reservations.” She fixed him with a stare, her ice-blue eyes pinning him where he stood. “Duty finds us in strange places.”

It was an odd thing: now that Anders had a  _ choice _ in the matter, his desire to leave was suddenly much less pressing. 

“We-ell,” he wheedled, “perhaps I could stay, for just a while longer. Llomerryn will still be there come Wintermarch.”

“I’m glad,” Lyna said. “Good healers are few and far between.”

“You’re a wise woman, Lyna.” Anders’ voice dripped with flattery, a wide smile touching the corners or his eyes. “And  _ beautiful _ .”

“And your  _ commander _ ,” she shot back, her voice not altogether serious. She extracted herself gracefully from the wall’s edge. “We’ll be out early tomorrow morning. Get some rest.”

With that, she swept away down the stairs of the tower, her footsteps making the barest whisper of a sound as she went. Anders leaned over the wall, watching faraway figures swim through the dark in silence like spirits, the moons rising in milky light overhead. The dark sky, with all its stars and constellations, stretched wide overhead, tented from Ferelden to the Anderfels and beyond, and Vigil’s Keep was so small underneath.

He was bound by duty for now, but it wouldn’t last forever: he would leave here soon enough, and then he would be _ free _ , truly this time. He’d been conscripted; it wasn't too much to hope that the templars wouldn’t come looking for him, not with the Warden-Commander on his side. 

When the Calling did come, Anders knew, he would at least go out a happy man.


	2. The Wrath of Heaven, Part 1

“Tell me why we shouldn’t kill you now.”

The voice, thickly-accented and  _ hard _ , swam through his muddy consciousness and sparked, somewhere deep and primal within him, the dreadful feeling of  _ I shouldn’t be here _ .

He opened his eyes and looked up, taking in everything dimly and sharply and all at once; he felt like he’d been sleeping for ages. He was in a room--a small, dank room--a prison. His hands were tied. His stomach rolled; there was a repulsive sort of  _ emptiness _ inside him. Even the small, gentle torches dotted around the room drove harsh light into his buzzing head. He was aware of something else being said, but it passed through him, drowned out by the sound of his own wetly pounding heart.

Two woman circled him like dragons, and all at once his senses crashed back to him. Fear and revulsion choked at the back of his mouth.

_ I shouldn’t be here. _

How many times had he imagined himself in this very situation?

Then, as if the words came in echo, he suddenly processed what the woman had said.

“The Conclave is destroyed. Everyone who attended is dead. Except for you.”

_ What? _

The deep-rooted fear, the cold dread--they slipped away for a moment, replaced with confusion like a cool breeze through the stagnant air. The Conclave, the C--the  _ what _ ? His head fizzed, a peculiar sort of hangover he knew to be brought about by strong magic. His stomach heaved again, and the troubling emptiness he couldn’t place, and his hand--his hand was  _ burning _ \--

They were waiting for an answer.

Anders had always thought, of course, that if--when-- _ if _ he were ever captured, he’d have some cutting and pithy and romantic remark, or that maybe he’d just stay silent, confident that history would speak for him. But this was not the situation he imagined, and if he was silent now, it was not from confidence. Words had seemed to flee him.

“You think I did this,” he finally managed, and he wasn’t sure whether he meant it as a question or an accusation, but he somewhat got the sense that he’d said the wrong thing. The woman with the accent-- _ a Seeker, a Seeker _ , an alarmed voice inside him suddenly noticed--surged forward and seized his hand, which suddenly burst with green light and searing pain.

“Explain this,” she raged, and Anders had the sense that something should be  _ happening _ now. 

“We need him, Cassandra,” the other woman said, her Orlesian accent smooth and calm. The Seeker--Cassandra--dropped his hands, with more force than was necessary. The magical burn across the palm of his hand faded, throbbing away to a dull ache. 

The Orlesian woman fixed her gaze on him; he flexed his hand experimentally, and felt no change in pain. The injury wasn’t physical; it was pure magic.

The Conclave. Everyone dead. He hadn’t--he’d only been there to--

A sickness, dark and deep, began to gather like blight in the pit of his stomach. What if Justice--what if he  _ had _ \--?

“Do you remember what happened?” the Orlesian woman said, Cassandra standing like a shadow behind her. “How this began?”

Anders glanced at the collection of guards, half-hidden by darkness around the small room. “I don’t--” he started. The Conclave. He’d been there to--why? To keep an eye--and then--

“I remember...running,” he said, and as he spoke, the memory came back to him, strangely clear among the rest of his muddled thoughts. “Things were chasing me, and then a--woman?”

A woman, shining in celestial light, bright as Andraste on the pyre--

“She reached out to me, but then…” he struggled to remember what came next, or what had come before. Anxiety had begun to reclaim him, and he was acutely aware of the skin where his hands were tied together.

“Go to the forward camp, Leliana,” Cassandra said, her voice an odd calm-after-the-storm. “I will take him to the rift.” She knelt and, with a strange and striking gentleness, released the lock that bound his hands to the floor. Anders looked down, suddenly unwilling to meet her gaze.

He hadn’t.

He  _ couldn’t _ have.

(But he knew that wasn’t true.)

“What  _ did _ happen?” he finally asked, nearly choking on the words as they came out. She sighed.

“It will be easier to show you.”

 

Anders could hardly believe what he saw. It shimmered sickly, a titanic oil slick of magical energy like a dripping wound from the sky. Even the snow, heaped in drifts on the ground, caught glittering reflections of its pulsing green light. Something small and selfish in him was, for a passing moment, relieved:  _ he _ couldn’t have done  _ that _ . But he swallowed that selfishness and forced himself to think: the hundreds dead, the mages dead, and strangely, the white-hot rage of Vengeance didn’t wash through him at the thought.

Where was--?

“We call it ‘the Breach.’” Cassandra said, her face somehow harder in the daylight. “Unless we act, the Breach may grow until it swallows the world.”

As if responding to her words, the Breach suddenly heaved with energy, and the mark on Anders’ hand erupted into light and pain unparalleled in intensity by any he’d felt in a long time. He collapsed to his knees, the pain lashing in searing ribbons through his veins, up his arm. 

Cassandra swept to the ground before him, and it was all he could do to not cringe away from her. Suddenly, the pain subsided, flaring away in pulses that ebbed away to a dull ache.

“Each time the Breach expands, your mark spreads,” Cassandra said, looking him dead in the eyes. Anders, winded, clutched his marked hand to his stomach. “And it  _ is _ killing you,” she continued. “It may be the key to stopping this, but there isn’t much time.”

Anders looked at her for a long while, and finally he nodded. She helped--pulled--him to his feet, and began to guide him along as he stumbled forward, her hand insistently pushing  on the small of his back. Justice, the Conclave...he would have time to think about these things later, but for now...

He watched the Breach as they walked, both horrified and fascinated by its eddying swirls. Still, he still felt the eyes on his back, the murmurs from bystanders on all sides. They were--

_ ‘There’s nothing you can say to me that I haven’t already said to myself.’ _

They were judging him, or  _ had _ judged him, but it was an all-too-familiar feeling and the least of his concerns, besides. He’d been judged all his life. Sometimes rightly.

“They have decided your guilt,” Cassandra said, a strange soft wobbling edge to her voice as she continued to guide him forward. “They  _ need _ it. The people of Haven mourn our Most Holy, Divine Justinia, Head of the Chantry. The Conclave was hers.”

_ The Conclave _ . He’d gone to--to ‘keep an eye on your mess,’ Hawke had joked. She hadn’t wanted him to go. His head swam, memories of the last week pulling hazily to the fore. He’d gone only to  _ observe _ . But now--

“It was a chance for peace between the mages and templars,” Cassandra said, and something in Anders dully echoed  _ ‘no peace’  _ in Justice’s voice, and he wearily pushed it away. 

“She brought their leaders together,” she continued. They had steered away from the meager crowds, into a wooded area banked with snow. “Now, they are dead.”

They passed through a large set of doors, onto an old stone bridge.  _ Haven. The Temple of Sacred Ashes. _ Soldiers--whose?--waited for them on the other side. Cassandra, quite unexpectedly, turned and roughly cut his hands free.

“There will be a trial. I can promise no more.”

Anders rolled his wrists, a small bit of anxiety falling away with no longer being physically restrained. He was grateful, though he didn’t understand why she’d done it--did she  _ trust _ him?

It occurred to him sharply, guiltily and giddily: she truly had no idea who he was.

_ Some Seeker _ . He nearly laughed, but Cassandra was forging onward, and it would cast a pall over his innocence were he to bolt now. He followed, through the icy air, the demons, the destruction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. I'd seen this concept floating around on tumblr a while back, and it's just stuck with me. This will be a (hopefully) fairly long, multi-chapter piece. Some places I'll stick pretty close to canon; others I'll deviate.


	3. The Wrath of Heaven, Part 2

Together Cassandra and Anders fought their way toward the rift, Anders wielding a weak and cracked staff he’d pulled from the rubble of a collapsed bridge. As they grew closer, he could hear shouts and cries; he could smell burning wood and hair and flesh.

They crested a snow-dusted set of stairs, and the rift came into view: a pulsing, crystalline thing suspended in the air above a handful of figures embroiled in battle. There was an elf, a few soldiers, a dwarf—a very familiar-looking dwarf—

\--and his crossbow, which Anders would recognize anywhere.

_Shit._

But he had little time to plan or panic; Cassandra surged forward into battle, and Anders felt compelled to follow. The shades, weak, were dealt with quickly—which was fortunate, as Anders kept stealing panicked glances toward Varric, wondering how long it would be until he said something damning.

Suddenly the shades were gone. The elf—a mage—seized Anders’ hand and shoved it toward the rift. He felt a pulling, a line of magic between his palm and the rift. With a small, instinctive tug, he pulled it closed, like suturing a wound in the air, and it was gone, leaving only a trace of shimmer and a smell like ozone behind.

The elf said something, but Anders could only think of Varric. What he wouldn’t give for a moment alone—a moment to explain. Cassandra had swept around to listen to the elf, and Anders forced himself to focus.

“It seems,” the elf said, “you hold the key to our salvation.”

It was a funny sort of combination of words, and one that Anders had no time to process.

“Well,” Varric said, his voice shattering the air like ice in the sun. Dread-filled, Anders turned to look. The dwarf fiddled nonchalantly with his gloves for a moment, then fixed him with a stare that, in true Varric style, said far more than even _he_ could fit into words.

“Isn’t that _interesting_.”

Anders’ chest grew tight as Varric approached. He had no idea at all where they stood; they hadn’t seen each other since Kirkwall, and while Varric and Hawke exchanged letters fairly frequently, she rarely spoke of them to Anders, and Anders never really had the heart to ask.

They’d been friends, once. But Anders doubted that was the case anymore.

“René Trevelyan,” Anders blurted, to convey his incognito status to Varric—then kicked himself. He had a number of pseudonyms under his belt for travelling, and René Trevelyan was easily the boldest, reserved for backwaters and peasantry who wouldn’t know a noble house from a rock. He might as well have called himself a Theirin and ended the illusion right there.

Varric gave him a strange, cautious look. “Huh,” he said—then gave a tiny I’ll-roll-with-it shrug that made Anders feel like grinning. “Varric Tethras,” Varric said. “Rogue, storyteller, and occasionally unwelcome tagalong.” He winked at Cassandra, who seemed none too pleased, and Anders wondered _what_ exact stories he’d been telling.

“My name is Solas, if there are to be introductions,” the other mage said, pleasantly. “I am pleased to see you still live.”

Varric smirked. “He means, ‘I kept that mark from killing you while you slept.’”

Anders flexed his hand, again, worrying over the blank spot in his memory like a sore. The woman, being chased—what had happened _before_?

“Cassandra, you should know,” Solas said, “the magic at work here is unlike any I have seen. Your prisoner is a mage, but I find it difficult to imagine _any_ mage having such power.”

“Understood,” Cassandra sighed. “We must get to the forward camp quickly.” With little warning, Cassandra turned and forged on, Solas close behind her; Anders hovered back, hesitating, Varric close by his side.

“René Trevelyan?” Varric said in a murmur, his voice teasing. Anders huffed a small breath of relief.

“Shut up,” Anders whispered back, a weary smile playing at the corners of his lips. Varric chuckled and started forward, and Anders followed.

 

They found Leliana and her men at the ruins of the Temple of Sacred Ashes. An acrid, sharply sweet scent had settled in a choking cloud about the place; a white coat of ash had dusted over everything, falling into the eyes and open mouths of the raw, twisted corpses frozen in poses of horror and agony.

The Temple was gone. Only death remained.

Anders’ hands trembled; his empty stomach gave a powerful lurch, and he tasted bile at the back of his tongue. From some blend of denial and respect, nobody said anything about the scene. Cassandra ordered Leliana’s men to take up positions around the temple, and only the notion that it was time to Do Something stirred Anders from his shock.

Varric’s shoulders sagged as he took in the sight of the sky. “The Breach is a long way up,” he said. Here, where the Breach had been born, it seemed impossibly large, and infinitely distant. Anders swallowed. “Is there a plan to get me up there?” he asked, following the billowing streaks of black-green with his eyes.

“No,” Solas said. “This rift was the first, and it may be the key.”

“Then let’s find a way down,” Cassandra said.

“Agreed,” Solas said. Cassandra, without a second look, charged forward down the path; the rest of them followed.

They rounded the corner of a ruined stone column, and Anders saw them immediately: angry, jutting spires of pulsing red lyrium, caked around the ground and walls in massive crystal heaps. He and Varric exchanged a heavy glance.

“You know this stuff is red lyrium, Seeker,” Varric said in a low voice.

“I see it, Varric.”

Varric and Anders both gave the stuff a wide berth as they walked. Cassandra was less cautious, but still walked with an awareness that suggested she knew what it was capable of. The ash underfoot was deceptive: it almost looked like dirty snow, but went soft and silent underfoot. The deeper they sank into the pit of the former temple, the more the sickening smell and smoke piled up around them.

Anders jumped down a ledge to the bottom of the pit, his knees nearly buckling beneath him. There was the rift, the first one, spiraling and feeding up into the Breach high above. As he drew closer, the mark on his hand jumped to life, the rift sputtering light in return, and then—

A voice, familiar: “Someone help me!”

“What’s going on here?”

Something was coming back to him—but he couldn’t quite—

“That was your voice,” Cassandra said from beside him, her voice peculiar. “Most Holy called out to you. But—“

The rift spat and jerked, then flamed into smoky white light, which cleared to reveal—

The Divine, bound up with her arms stretched, a shadowy figure lurking over her with its features obscured by darkness. It was a disturbing image; Anders heard Cassandra gasp quietly, and Varric tensed.

Then there was—him. He hardly recognized himself: his cheeks and eyes were gaunt, his lower face covered by a scraggly beard with streaks of gray hair at his temples. He—the image—rushed in, glanced around; the Divine looked at _him_ and cried: “Run while you can! Warn them!”

Anders tried to remember; he plumbed his mind as the scene unfolded, but it felt familiar only as a dream feels familiar, distantly and foreign.

“Slay the mage,” the shadowed figure had said, and then the vision popped, the rift receding into itself once again.

There was a brief, stunned silence.

“You _were_ there,” Cassandra exclaimed, the words coming out in an excited, demanding rush. “Who attacked? And the Divine, is she…? Is this vision true? What are we seeing?”

“I don’t remember,” Anders replied. He was _trying_ , but he couldn’t—

“Echoes of what happened here,” Solas said, evenly. “The rift is closed, albeit temporarily. I believe that, with the mark, the rift can be opened, and then sealed properly and safely.”

_Like re-setting a bone._

“Alright,” Anders nodded.

Leliana’s men stood at the ready, archers positioned up around the ruined walls, swordsmen posed alongside Cassandra at the rift. Solas and Varric fell back to a guarded distance, and Anders—

Anders stood just underneath the rift, far underneath the Breach, alone.

He raised his hand. The mark sparked eagerly and a tether arced to the rift, yanking him forward. Magic pushed and pulled and pulsed through him, his body neither beginning nor end but a conduit for whatever forces were at play. The rift swelled and ripped open, jerking his arm away, and as he stumbled and struggled for balance he saw, from the corner of his eye, a pride demon, and Cassandra and the soldiers already beginning their assault.

The demon put up a fight, but it weakened soon enough, and as it fell Anders had already put his mark to the rift again. It fought against him, boiling with yellow light; it shrank to a small, concentrated ball, then, electricity sparking through the air, dissipated, wisps of smoke trailing up away into the Breach.

There was a brief, fragile stillness.

Then something in the air _popped_ , and black stings of light bubbled behind Anders’ eyes, and the world went dark and silent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, so. Personally, I think strict re-telling of the plot is sort of boring to read, so I'm sorry if you think so, too, haha. But right now it's necessary to advance the plot. I'm going to try to add more original scenes and, you know, spice it up more as we go along.


	4. The Herald of Andraste, Part 1

_Wake up._  
  


... _Anders._  
  


_WAKE UP._

 

Anders opened his eyes, and found himself on a bed in a candlelit room. The room, he noticed immediately, was small, and bordered by chill despite the fire smoldering in the fireplace against one wall.

It wasn't a prison, this time. That alone was encouraging.

He stirred. His shoulder was sore. Recollections of the Breach came back to him through his sleep-fogged head.

He noticed a few more things, gradually: he'd been changed into a set of fresh clothes—rather nice ones—and he felt _clean_ , like he'd been bathed. He rolled up to sit on the bed, his head swirling, and flexed his marked hand. Green light sizzled to life across his palm, but it looked and felt tamer now, no longer splitting with violent pain—though it did still ache, a little. Absently, he rubbed the mark with his opposite thumb, and the light subsided.

He didn't _seem_ to be a prisoner anymore. Had they closed the Breach? If so—he could go, slip away from this place; he could find Hawke, and return to what little normalcy they had found over the last few years.

The silence pressed in on him as he sat there, dwelling in his thoughts. He could go. Why shouldn't he go? The thought twisted off, hollow, in his head. He felt alone, in a troubling way that he couldn't quite sort out. Mentally he reached out, expecting some mental pushback or response or _feeling_ from Justice.

There was nothing.

His leg bounced on the floor for an energetic second, and then suddenly he stood, pulled on the soft shoes that had been left by the bed, and flurried out the front door.

 

The cold air hit him as he slipped out, piercing through the thin fabric of his clothes; the chill gave him just enough pause that, for a second, he met the eyes of Varric, who hovered in conversation _conspicuously_ close to the little cabin Anders had just left.

For a fragile moment Anders considered bolting, but then Varric pressed something into the hand of the elf girl to whom he'd been speaking, and started Anders' way.

Anders sighed, and slumped against the doorway as Varric approached. The dwarf blew in right past him; Anders followed and shut the door, swallowing the room in silence once again.

Varric watched the fire for a long moment, and Anders watched the back of Varric's head, trying to decipher his mood. He opened his mouth to speak, to plead with Varric to continue the ruse—

"So!" Varric laughed then, turning to face Anders with a _frustratingly_ amused smirk. "The Herald of Andraste."

Anders stilled—whatever he'd been expecting to hear, it wasn't that. "The—what?" he asked.

"That's what they're calling you," Varric shrugged. "The Herald of Andraste. To hear it told by these people, the woman you saw was Andraste herself, guiding you out of the Breach—which, by the way, has stopped growing. It's really lightened the mood around here." Varric chuckled. "You're a regular miracle worker."

Anders shook his head. Andraste? And the Breach—not closed, but... "The—who's 'they'?" he asked, trying to make more sense of what had been said. He felt fuzzy, blurry at the edges.

"Does it matter?" Varric asked, a spark in his eye. Then, with an exaggerated shift in expression that expertly indicated a change of subject, he ran his gaze over Anders. "You look terrible," he laughed.

"That's--"

"Listen, I'm having some food brought in. I'm sure you haven't eaten in—days now, right? Besides, it'll give us a chance to catch up." Varric collapsed in a chair, looking for all the world like he owned this cabin (and from what Anders knew of Varric's many enteprises, he very well could). Anders hovered anxiously in the middle of the room, before sitting down stiffly on the edge of the bed.

He stared at Varric, unsure of what to say. Varric, as always, took the conversational initiative.

"So," Varric drawled, "blow up any Chantries lately?"

Anders glared. "That's _not_ funny."

"Wasn't supposed to be." Varric levelled a look at him. "René Trevelyan? Is that your—"

"No," Anders cut him off.

"Huh," Varric huffed. "So...what _is_? I never thought to ask."

Anders could hardly believe that _this_ was what Varric chose to talk about in the present situation—well, he _could_ believe it, actually, but it still baffled him. "Six years in Kirkwall and you 'never thought to ask'?"

"Forgive me if I was a little distracted, Blondie. I had my hands full at the time."

"And you don't now?"

"Fair point," Varric shrugged.

"It doesn't matter now, anyway," Anders replied. "People call you something often enough and you start to believe that's who you are. Anders, Justice..." he looked at Varric with a bitter smirk. "Mage abomination."

"You're making me cry," Varric deadpanned. "But speaking of mage abominations..." he took a subtle look around, and dropped his voice to a low, uncharacteristically serious murmur. "That's really what I wanted to talk to you about. You know, I'm more than happy to cover for you, but I need to know that you can keep Justice under control."

Anders fidgeted, feeling the emptiness in his chest like a hollow drum.

"That's the thing," he started. "I—"

There was a timid knock on the door, then, and after a moment the elf woman to whom Varric had been talking sheepishly pushed her way through, carrying a metal tray. Anders could smell the food almost as soon as she walked in, and his hunger grew sharp. He half-rose from his seat on the bed.

"Your food, sers," she said, bowing her head, a noticeable tremor in her voice. Anders shifted where he stood.

"Thank you," he said, still hovering strangely in place. Varric, meanwhile, had taken the food from her hands and set it aside. He fished a coin from his pocket—Anders didn't catch the color—and pressed it into her hand. Her only reaction in receipt was a slight clenching of the fingers around it; she didn't even look.

She was looking at Anders.

He felt a familiar sort of panic rise, a panic that came from _anyone_ staring at him too long, but there was something in her face; she—

"Cassandra will want to know you've wakened," she sputtered. "'At once,' she said."

"Let Cassandra know," Varric said soothingly, "that he'll be there just as _soon_ as he's finished eating."

She hesitated, then bowed her head, and slipped out. Varric handed the tray to Anders.

There was a bowl of stew, unmistakably Ferelden both in its ingredients and in the general sort of slapdash way they'd been cooked together; some kind of salted whitefish; some ale; there was even a small, syrupy-looking pastry to the side. His mouth watered—despite his mixed feelings on Ferelden, the food of that country would always be at least familiar, if not comforting.

His hunger was suddenly unbearable. He dug into the soup, eating ravenously even as it scalded his tongue and burned hot and tasteless down the back of his throat, and stopping only to chew on a stray scrap of meat. Varric watched him, saying unusually little.

The soup was mostly gone—as was most of the fish, and all of the ale—when Anders finally paused.

"Thank you," he breathed, a wave of fatigue settling over him as his hunger subsided. "For not—saying who I was."

"Well," Varric shrugged. "It wasn't just for your benefit, you know. I've got a pretty compelling reason to keep the Seeker from throttling you on sight." He smirked. "She's about five feet tall, and would probably set me on fire if anything happened to you."

Anders chuckled, his tension easing slightly. He felt weak, deeply, and it dawned on him with a sort of sick resignation that he wasn't going anywhere—for a few days, at least. He wouldn't have made it half a day out in the condition he was in.

So he settled into conversation with his old friend, instead.

"What are you doing here, anyway?" Anders asked. He picked up the little syrupy pastry and pulled it into flakes with his fingers, popping small bites into his mouth. "I thought you'd still be in Kirkwall."

Varric flicked a bit of lint from his sleeve. "As it turns out, publishing a book about your _very_ close friends causing _and_ defeating a Qunari invasion _and_ kicking off a war for good measure _tends_ to get you pulled in for some questions. Ha. Who knew?"

"Questions?" Anders asked.

"Don't worry, Blondie; I've been leading the Seeker on a wild goose chase since day one."

Anders chewed thoughfully. He wanted to say something about Justice, but—what? That Justice was _gone_? How? He wasn't even sure that that was true; he couldn't remember what it felt like to be—Anders. Only-Anders, his own body, his own thoughts, his own life...his own selfishness, his own self-interest. Thinking back on the Circle, his time with the Wardens...his childhood...they felt like lifetimes ago, a gap in memory and across personality that he could no longer bridge.

Was Justice gone? The thought both panicked and elated him, and he ended up saying nothing.

"Listen, before I forget..." Varric started, that old and familiar boy-have-I-got-a-great-joke-for-you tone heavy in his voice, "You'll never guess who's here."

Anders blinked, puzzling through who it could possibly be. Judging by the way Varric had asked, it was either someone very, very good or very, very bad. "...Who?" he finally asked.

"Our old friend Knight-Captain Cullen!" Varric burst, as if it were the funniest thing in the world; when Anders didn't immediately respond, he continued, "From the Gallows! You know, standing around, sticking his foot in his mouth..."

There— _there_ was a flicker of something, something sickly familiar within Anders, but it was gone before he could grasp at it. He shook his head. "Please tell me you're joking," he said.

"Nope," Varric chuckled. "Though I don't think he goes by _Knight-Captain_ these days. Can't really blame him. Oh, come on, don't look at me that way," he admonished. "Do you really think he'd recognize you? I doubt he's ever looked a mage in the eyes his entire _life_. Besides, you're all..." Varric wiggled his fingers. "... _beardy_ now."

Anders groaned, rubbing his hand over his mouth—then looked at Varric. "Beardy?"

"Rugged, world-weary, embeardened; look, it's been a long couple of days. I just thought I'd warn you about our favorite ex-templar so you don't go all blue and vengeful when you see him."

" _Ex_ -templar?"

"I told you he doesn't go by Knight-Captain these days." Varric rose from his seat, rolling his shoulders. "You should go see the Seeker soon. If I know her, she's run about five poor young soldiers through from impatience by now."

Anders set aside the empty tray. "You're not serious."

"About half-serious. Really, though, you should go see her. I'm sure she's got just oodles of things to tell you that she doesn't want _me_ to be privy to." He started toward the door. "We'll talk later," he said over his shoulder, then walked out into the cold, leaving Anders to consider his next move.

Not that there was much to consider. He was weak, and tired, and he still had the mark on his hand that, for all he knew, was still in the process of killing him, despite the fact that it no longer ached so intensely.

And furthermore—the Breach had stopped growing, but it wasn't _closed_. Something in him was curious, felt a fleeting desire to stay and investigate, to find out whether demons still poured through the hole in the Veil. It was not a strong desire, but he couldn't ignore it.

Regardless, he knew he had no choice. He would go, for now, and talk—just talk to Cassandra. Maybe he could thank Solas for saving his life. He seemed to be off the hook; he tried not to feel so much like a dead man walking. He only had to talk to Cassandra.

And...Cullen.

_Andraste's ass._

He rose, and left the cabin.


	5. The Herald of Andraste, Part 2

Anders hesitated by the heavy wooden door inside the Chantry, listening the voices that flitted through from the other side.

"Your duty is to serve the Chantry." That was that trussed-up arse, that Chantry brother—Roderick?—who had assailed them on their way to the Breach.

Then came Cassandra's voice: "My _duty_ is to serve the principles on which the Chantry was founded, Chancellor. As is yours."

Roderick gave no reply.

Anders was finding himself more and more impressed by Cassandra. He'd assumed her, at first, some overzealous and glorified Chantry slave, but he made himself remember that the Seekers of Truth were not _just_ an extension of the Templars. She had actually stood up for him, after all, and—better—she no longer seemed to believe he was guilty.

Still, he could only guess at her larger motives. The fact that she'd been so interested in Varric—it gave him pause.

"You walk a dangerous line, Seeker," Roderick said. Anders wondered if he thought he sounded at all intimidating.

"The Breach is stable, but it is still a threat," Cassandra replied. "I will not ignore it."

Anders frowned. He'd hoped to hear that the Breach was nothing more than a scar now, a strange-looking but otherwise harmless mark on the sky. He'd hoped to hear the same about the mark on his hand; in other words, he'd hoped to hear that he had no further obligations here.

As usual, that had been entirely too much to hope.

"You have done enough," Roderick snapped. His voice even _sounded_ mousy.

Cassandra said something Anders couldn't quite hear; he pressed his ear closer to the door. "The Breach is not the only threat we face."

Leliana's voice came in then, cutting into the conversation with careful precision. Anders hadn't even realized she was in the room. "Someone was behind the explosion at the Conclave," Leliana said. "Someone Most Holy did not expect. Perhaps they died with the others—or have allies who yet live."

" _I_ am a suspect?" Roderick asked, incredulously.

 _This is getting too goo_ _d,_ Anders thought. He pushed through the door, trying his best to look like he hadn't just been eavesdropping for several minutes. Roderick looked at him with open disdain.

"You, and many others," Leliana snapped. Anders suspected that she was tiring of Roderick's posturing; any sane person would be.

"But _not_ the prisoner," Roderick said, sneering his mousy sneer at Anders.

"I _heard_ the voices in the Temple," Cassandra said, a strange fervor and conviction in her voice. "The Divine called to him for help."

It was an odd thing to have someone defend him; over the last few years, Hawke had been his one and only knight, carrying him against the tides of an unfriendly world. But he knew, as much as she had tried to hide it, that there were times—dark times—when she had doubted him, had let painful space grow between them from the soil of mistrust.

It was an odd thing to have someone defend him. It was an odder thing still to have someone _believe_ in him.

"You really—believe that?" he asked, his voice quiet.

"I was wrong before," Cassandra admitted, and once again he found himself impressed by her willingness to change her mind. "Perhaps I still am. I will not, however, pretend you were not exactly what we needed exactly when we needed it."

"The Breach remains," Leliana added, looking at him, "and your mark is still our only hope of closing it."

Roderick pushed out his chest in what Anders thought was a hilariously ineffectual attempt at intimidation. "This is _not_ for you to decide."

A loud bang shook the room as Cassandra threw something down on the table—a thick book, leatherbound, branded with an emblem not unlike that of the Seekers of Truth. "You know what this is, Chancellor," she said, with an air of finality in her voice that suggested that that had better be the _last_ time Roderick tried to push his tenuous authority in her. "A writ from the Divine, granting us the authority to act."

_The Divine?_

Swirling, a memory half-remembered, the Divine's voice calling out to him—

"As of this moment," Cassandra said, "I declare the Inquisition reborn." She began approaching on Roderick; he backed away from her as she spoke. "We will close the Breach, we will find those responsible, and we will restore order, with or without your approval."

 _Restore order._ Suddenly everything fell into place.

This was about the war—or it had been originally; that was why Cassandra had had Varric, why they'd been here at the Conclave, why the Divine had given this writ. Of course. And here he was, stuck in the middle of it.

No wonder Varric had been so damn _tickled._

Roderick, having nothing left to say, fled the room, and without his presence Cassandra seemed to deflate. She hunched over the book on the table, her shoulders tired.

"This is the Divine's directive," Leliana spoke up—mostly for Anders' benefit, he guessed. "Rebuild the Inquisition of old. Find those who will stand against the chaos." She looked at him, and he felt suddenly trapped, pinned against the floor.

"We aren't ready," Leliana continued. "We have no leader, no numbers, and now no Chantry support."

 _All the better,_ Anders thought.

"But we have no choice," Cassandra said. "We must act now. With you at our side." She looked at Anders.

His hands itched—Maker, tired or not, he should have bolted when he'd had the chance.

"Help us fix this, before it's too late," Cassandra said, and extended her hand toward his. Anders hesitated a moment, basking in the surreality of this moment—then took her hand, against his better instincts and feeling quite distant from his own body, and shook it. She gave him a small and grateful smile.

As their hands clasped, his erupted into sparks of light; he jerked away from Cassandra, and clutched it to his chest. It took only a moment for the pain to subside, but as he shook out his hand, he could feel both women watching him, and he couldn't quite read the peculiar expression on Cassandra's face.

Leliana spoke up. "I'll go find Cullen and Josephine. You should meet them."

Anders bit back a sigh, and gave a tense nod. Leliana swept out of the room.

Silence fell. Anders looked around, eyes falling on anything even remotely interesting in an attempt to fill time, and when he finally looked back at Cassandra, she still had a stare fixed like torchlight upon him.

" _W_ _hat_?" he snapped.

"Nothing," Cassandra said, her voice strangely soft, "It just—occurs to me that I don't know much about you."

"You know my name," Anders lied—then regretted his rudeness. She was sticking up for him, after all.

He sighed, and tried to relax the tense set in his jaw. "All right, what would you like to know?"

"I'm—not sure," she admitted, fiddling with her fingers in front of her. "Where are you from?"

 _Here we go_. "Ferelden," he said—that much was true. "But I—moved around a lot, after the Blight." That, too, was not exactly a lie.

"Were you in Circle Tower, then? I believe Cullen—"

"Ah—no," Anders interjected. "I—was an apostate. My whole...family was."

He could see a hard set in Cassandra's lips, and he wondered briefly if he'd made the wrong decision.

"Well," she said with a sort of weary exhale, "I suppose that means little now."

"What about you?" Anders found himself asking, a slick redirection of the conversation away from himself. "I assume you're not from Ferelden."

Cassandra gave a small sort. "No. Nevarra, actually. I—"

She was interrupted by the heavy, rhythmic sound of armored footsteps. Anders froze, feeling in the back of his neck the whisper of a familiar feeling...

"Ah," Cassandra said. "This is Commander Cullen, leader of the Inquisition's forces."

It was a feat of great will for Anders to force himself to turn around and face Cullen—and an even greater feat to reach out and take his outstretched hand. The contact made his skin crawl.

"What little remain," Cullen said, darkly, oblivious to the anger with which Anders clutched his hand. "Trevelyan, was it? Well met."

"Yes," Anders managed—and he saw a slight narrowing of the eyes, a spark of recognition and _this is it—_

"You look familiar; have we met?" was all Cullen said. Anders realized he'd bit down hard on the inside of his cheek; he could taste blood, faintly.

"Cassandra tells me you were at Circle Tower," Anders said, as casually as he could manage. He cheered inside when he saw Cullen tense, and cut a glance to Cassandra; the events at Circle Tower were sure to have left an impression on him. "I had a cousin there; we're said to look alike."

"Ah," Cullen said, tersely, and the matter was dropped—for now, at least. Anders felt the itch of adrenaline through his veins slowly ebb away. The lie about the cousin likely wouldn't hold up under intense scrutiny, but then again, he was sure that many records at Circle Tower had been destroyed, or lost in the chaos. In any case, he planned to make himself scarce before any serious suspicions arose.

Two more sets of footsteps came—Leliana, and a woman Anders assumed to be Josephine.

"This is Lady Josephine Montilyet," Cassandra said, "our ambassador and chief diplomat."

"It's a pleasure to meet you at last," Josephine said.

"And of course you know Sister Leliana," Cassandra continued, gesturing toward her. "She is our spymaster."

That made sense—she carried herself like someone with secrets to guard, and even more secrets to expose. If Cassandra made Anders nervous, and Cullen frightened him, Leliana was outright terrifying.

He rubbed at the mark on his hand, a gesture he feared was beginning to become something of a tell. He felt the mark acutely with the four of them staring him down; it was like an anchor, binding him here by some abstract duty.

Cassandra looked down to his hands.

"Does it—trouble you?" she asked. Anders flexed his hand thoughtfully.

"It's fine," he lied.

The set in her lips told Anders she didn't believe him, but she said, "Good. We have need of it yet. Solas believes a second attempt to seal the Breach might succeed, given we had enough power. The same level of power used to open the breach in the first place."

"Which means," Leliana said, "we must approach the rebel mages for help."

 _The rebel mages_.

"And I still disagree," Cullen said. His voice grated on Anders' nerves; it always had. He tried not to let it show. "The templars could serve just as well," Cullen continued, "They could suppress the Breach, weaken it—"

"Pure speculation," Leliana interrupted, her voice as cool as water.

" _I_ was a templar. I know what they're capable of."

"So do I," Anders muttered, the words falling out heavy and dark before he had a chance to bite them back. Cullen stared back at him, his eyes wide _,_ and an ugly silence settled around the table.

"Un _for_ tunately," Josephine inserted herself, "neither group will even speak to us yet. The Chantry has denounced us, and you," here she gestured towards Anders, "specifically."

"That was fast," he said.

"Approaching the mages _or_ templars for help is currently out of the question," Josephine said.

"There is something you can do," Leliana said, looking at Anders. He was starting to feel weary again, and the greasy food he'd shoveled down was weighing in his gut like a rock. "A Chantry cleric by the name of Mother Giselle has asked to speak to you, near Redcliffe. Her assistance could be invaluable."

"She's asked for _me_?" Anders replied, dreading even the _prospect_. Chantry mothers were waffling, emptyheaded biddies, more concerned with preserving the flow of coin into the Chantry coiffures than with actually helping _anyone_. His shoulders stiffened. "You don't think that could be an ambush?"

"I doubt it," Leliana said. "From what I know of her, she is a kind soul, and not the sort to involve herself with violence."

Anders swallowed a sigh. _Redcliffe_. He couldn't see much of a way out. "Alright," he agreed, rather unhappily.

"Look for other opportunities to extend the Inquisition's influence while you're there," Cullen said.

"We need agents to extend our reach beyond this valley," Josephine agreed. "And you're better suited than anyone to recruit them."

 _That can't be true._ Anders felt himself reeling; everything was happening so quickly that it felt unreal, and faraway. He was here, in this room—he'd only just woken up—and yesterday, or whenever it had been, he'd been fighting to close a rift in the Veil resulting from a cataclysm he couldn't himself remember—and now he was the supposed Herald of Andraste, tasked with speaking to Chantry mothers on behalf of a neonatal Inquisition.

He could almost hope he was dreaming, bizarre as it all felt.

"In the meantime," Cassandra said, "let's think of other options. I won't leave this all to the Herald."

 _The Herald_. Did she really believe that—this woman who so recently had been his jailor? Or was it all posturing, a title meant to incense the Chantry?

He felt a bit sick, and the dim light of the room was pulling away from him, and he felt cramped, and dizzy.

"Excuse me," he managed to say, nodding his head with a somewhat fumbling politeness, then swept out of the room, down the Chantry hallway back into the cold, bright fresh air.

  


The brisk air in his lungs brought him back to his senses a small bit, and he stumbled through Haven, no particular destination in mind. Everywhere he walked, people watched him with awe and respect, swapping rumors that he could more than half-hear.

How many of these people, just days ago, had reviled him? Had thought him a monster?

His palms itched. He took a path that seemed somewhat secluded, but as he rounded a curve, it led him up into a small cluster of buildings. At least there were fewer gawkers standing about, here. He stopped, hesitated, unsure of whether to continue or turn around.

Then he spotted Solas at the top of the small incline, and without a thought, his feet moved again.

Solas watched him approach.

"Greetings," he said when Anders had drawn close, his accent lilting in a way similar enough to Merrill's that Anders wondered if he could be Dalish. He didn't look it. Anders nodded.

"I wanted to thank you," Anders said, "for saving my life."

Solas gave a small smile. "No need. Though I must admit I am surprised—that mark is powerful magic. I doubt a weaker mage could have survived it."

Anders gave a noncommittal hum in reply.

"Your connection to the Fade is strong," Solas continued. "Whether that comes by the mark or by innate talent I am curious to find out."

"How do you know that?"

"I've studied the Fade nearly my whole life," Solas replied, crossing in front of Anders to stare out at the horizon. "I make frequent journeys into its depths, sleeping at the ruins of ancient battlefields to rediscover secrets long-forgotten." He turned his head slightly, sparing the barest glance back at Anders. "I hope you forgive me, then, for my interest in the mark."

Anders felt the smallest twinge of something inside him, a wisp of a stirring of longing that felt familiar and foreign, and which he did his best to ignore.

"I suppose I'd better," he replied. Solas turned back around fully, and approached him again.

"I've decided to stay. At least until the Breach is sealed."

"You didn't plan on staying?"

"Surely you understand my discomfort," Solas replied. "I am an apostate surrounded by Chantry forces in the middle of a mage rebellion."

"Of course. I just thought—" Anders hesitated. "It's good that you're staying," he finally finished, lamely, though he wasn't sure it _was_ good. Still, if something went wrong with the mark, or the Breach...

He looked up at the Breach, still churning slowly, stable as it was. He looked at it, and felt faintly the sensation of floating, like a distant memory, a half-remembered dream. He felt the same faint flutter of longing, of confusion lodged like sickness just below his heart.

He heard Solas speak: "The people are frightened by it. Likely they've always thought of the Fade in only abstract terms. Spirits and demons are as distant to them as Par Vollen."

"Not to mages," Anders replied, the words dull out of his mouth.

"No," Solas said, "I suppose not."

A cold wind swept powder from the ground, and stirred through the branches of the swaying trees.

Anders kept on staring at the sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the slow updates, but I'm looking to get things really rolling within the next few chapters. As always, comments are very much appreciated!


	6. The Threat Remains

Wonders never ceased.

Mother Giselle, in stark contrast to Anders' expectations, had been halfway tolerable. Of course, that she no longer seemed to be aligned with the Chantry proper had been a plus—her endorsement of mages had been another—still, he found himself trusting in her advice to a greater degree than he'd liked to admit.

The situation in the Hinterlands was—well, it was nothing that he didn't expect, which was to say 'desperate.' He and Hawke had passed through here recently, stopping for a while outside Redcliffe to give aid and healing to the rebel mages there. If any of them had figured out who he was then, they'd said nothing. If any of them recognized him now, they said nothing, too.

Still, suffering was everywhere. If Hawke were here now, Anders knew, she'd be running to Denerim and back for food, blankets, and spare coin for every last refugee, all with a smile on her face. She had always been that way—selfless, thoroughly.

But there was too much, too much to do, too many people to help, and it wasn't long before, on the way to Redcliffe, Anders found himself turning his eye away from those in need. The Breach—that was the thing; it was why they were here. Besides, they had Inquisition scouts doing what they could for the refugees, and, he thought—feeling distinctly awful as he did—the sooner the Breach was sorted, the sooner he could leave.

He felt miserable, and relieved, as they found Giselle, then Horsemaster Dennet, then retired to Haven to approach their next problem.

  


("Did I do the right thing?" Cassandra wondered aloud, stirring the embers of a dying campfire. Sparks fluttered up from the coals, disappearing in the night air.

They were camped just outside Haven. One of the horses had spooked and thrown its rider, a young scout, and run off; by the time they'd tracked down and calmed the horse, and healed the poor girl's broken ribs, the moonless night had become much too dark to travel by. So they camped.

Anders wasn't sure whether Cassandra was talking to him or to herself, until she looked at him across the fire and spoke again, her voice grave. "What I have set in motion here could destroy everything I have revered my whole life."

Anders looked briefly at Varric; he seemed to be asleep. Anders knew it was a strong possibility, however, that he was awake, and eavesdropping.

He looked back at Cassandra. "Why are you doing it, then?"

"Because no one else will," she shot back—then sighed. "Perhaps that makes me a fool. Perhaps the Chantry is right. But I believe you are innocent."

A moment of silence passed. Varric snored softly—he was asleep, after all.

"You didn't," Anders replied, quietly.

"No," Cassandra said. He could barely make out her face in the thick darkness. "If I was—rash—We were frightened. And grieving. So much was lost. And we had to act."

"I understand," Anders said.

To his own surprise, he actually did.)

  


Then they'd gone to Val Royeaux.

He, Cassandra, Varric, and Solas crossed into the city, the blinding white spires and gilded statues visible from miles out, shining as if with a light of their own. The extravagance disgusted him; as they passed through the city gates he saw, with something like satisfaction, the cracks in the facade: walls and stonework crumbling at the corners, bright coats of paint slapped over the old in not-quite-matching colors.

One of Leliana's spies approached them, worry written on her face. She kneeled.

"The Chantry mothers await you," she reported, her eyes flitting between Anders and Cassandra. "And so do a great many templars."

Anders bit down hard on his tongue. The wide arena of the city market before them suddenly looked like a lion's jaws, ready to snap.

"There are templars here?" Cassandra asked.

"People seem to think the templars will protect them from—from the Inquisition."

After a moment's hesitation, they crossed to the other side of the market where, indeed, a number of Orlesians had gathered. Templars in their polished armor stood like sentinels around the crowd. At the center of it all, on a platform above the rest, a Chantry mother gestured wildly to the crowd, venom in her voice as she spoke.

"Good people of Val Royeaux," she said, "hear me. We mourn our Divine, her naive and beautiful heart silenced by treachery."

Her eyes found Anders in the crowd.

"You wonder what will become of her murderer," she continued. Anders' fingers twitched, inching toward his staff; he could feel the eyes of the gathered people, one by one, fall on him.

"Well," the mother continued, "wonder no more. Behold, the so-called Herald of Andraste, claiming to rise where our beloved fell. We say this is a false prophet—"

"Enough!" Anders snapped—not loudly, but the crowd's whispers suddenly hushed at the sound. There was an itching at the back of his neck, an urging to _go on_. "I won't listen to these vile accusations; we came to talk."

"It's true," Cassandra added. "The Inquisition seeks only to end this madness before it is too late."

"It is already too late," the Chantry mother said, gesturing to a small group of templars who marched on the platform in formation. Anders, without thinking, reached around to his back, closed his fingers around the staff resting there—

Then the mother fell. _Punched_ by a templar.

Stunned silence. The whole city froze.

Anders dropped his hand, and Cassandra fluttered to chase after the Lord Seeker. The Templar Order had abandoned the Chantry—well and truly. Not that they'd _ever_ been truly beholden to the Chantry, but this was a new level of danger.

"That's not good," Varric murmered next to him, and Anders nodded, absently.

That definitely was not good.

The templars stalked out of Val Royeaux, declaring the city "unfit" for their protection, and more and bitterer eyes fell upon Anders and his companions.

"I get the sense we're not wanted here," Varric murmured.

"Agreed," Cassandra said, reluctantly.

"Back to Haven, then?" Solas asked. Anders watched the retreating backs of the templars.

 _Disgusting. Cowards._ He wanted to follow after them—and found himself bouncing on his feet, fists clenched—

"Yes. I'm sure they—" Cassandra started, right as an arrow _thwip_ ped its way into the stone pavement before Anders' feet. He felt her hand lash out, grasping around his arm with a rather painful force, tugging him back.

They all looked around; no archer could be seen.

"It appears to be a message," Solas said, evenly. Anders looked at it—he was right; there was parchment tied around the shaft—then looked up again, helplessly, to watch the last visible indication of the templars' retreat, a glinting of sun off their backs as they rounded the corner out of sight.

  


(At the tavern in Haven, Varric and Anders drank.

More accurately, Varric drank while Anders sipped. Hardly a word was said between them, but the silence was peaceful, unspoken reminiscences passing through the frosty air.

Josephine entered. In the Chantry she'd looked—normal—but here, all gold and ruffles and exquisite tailoring among a smattering of poor pilgrims in a run-down tavern, she looked—downright bizarre.

Anders heard whispering from the back of the room. He wondered if that was how the people of Haven saw him—him with his glowing hand, the Herald of Andraste. The idea was uncomfortable.

"Varric," she said, approaching the table with a genial smile. "There _just_ arrived a merchant with a stock of the tea you've asked for."

"Ah, Marcher tea," Varric grinned, gesturing widely. "Best you'll ever taste." He winked at Anders.

"So I've heard," Anders said, sipping his ale with a small smile.)

  


They tracked Red Jenny to an alley outside the city market, moonlight glowing weirdly off the bright whites of the Orlesian archetecture.

 _Red Jenny_. A memory of a better time, an adventure, a cousin of Hawke's.

She—the girl—Sera. She'd looked Anders up and down and declared him to be _normal_. He wanted to laugh, almost.

But he liked her. _'Someone little always hates someone big.'_

He tried not to think too hard on it.

  


Vivienne and the Iron Bull joined them shortly.

  


Weeks had passed, now, since the Conclave, and every day he thought of leaving; he no longer had weakness as an excuse to stay. He was recovered, save the last lingering bruises from the assault on the Breach. He could go—Josephine, Cassandra, Leliana, they were more than capable of handling this "Inquisition" he'd never wanted a part of. Every day, more of the faithful filtered into Haven, whispering as he passed, pledging their services to the Inquisition. If they had need of his hand again, Varric would know where to find him.

Yet something stayed him, a sense of—duty? Justice?

He had other duties, he knew, other injustices. Always other, always more.

Every day he thought of leaving.

Every day the threat from the Chantry grew greater.

Every day, he stayed.


	7. In Hushed Whispers, Part 1

"You can't seriously _believe_ that."

Cullen gave a sort of huff. "Despite their—erratic behavior," he said, "I still think the templars are our best bet. We don't even know what the mages _want_."

"What do the _templars_ want?" Anders shot back. They were gathered in the Chantry hall, himself and Cullen, as well as Josephine, Cassandra, and Leliana. Anders felt edgy, his patience strained; he'd just come off a rather irritating conversation with Vivienne, which he couldn't quite push out of his thoughts.

"At least the mages _want_ our involvement," Anders continued, looking from corner to corner in the tall, narrow room. Typically, a handful of people lingered in here. Now, it seemed to have been cleared. He wondered if Mother Giselle had ushered the people away in anticipation of this meeting—she seemed to do those sorts of things often, despite being neither asked nor thanked.

"In exchange for something, no doubt," Cullen said. The cool quality of his voice irked Anders.

"Likely what they've always wanted," Cassandra said. "Support for their cause."

"It could be a trap," Leliana added, "though I don't think it's likely. From what I know of her, Fiona is not the scheming type. She's always been outspoken about her beliefs."

"Even if it is a trap," Anders said, bristling, "I'd still feel safer _there_ than walking into a room full of angry rebel templars."

He and Cullen locked eyes for a moment.

Cullen shrugged. "Point taken."

"So we go to the mages," Cassandra said.

"I've got agents in Redcliffe already," Leliana said. "They'll be ready should you need assistance."

"This won't make the Chantry happy," Josephine sighed. "But nothing we do at this point could."

"At least they're harmless without the templars' support," Cullen conceded.

"Toothless," Josephine said with a smile, "yes. Harmless, no. Our best advantage right now is that they cannot decide on a new Divine."

"In that case," Cullen said, "we'd better act fast." He looked at Anders. "Be ready to leave for Redcliffe at dawn."

 _For once, we agree_ , he thought.

  


That night, Anders lay awake in bed.

Haven was hushed, after dark—a reminder that even amidst the panic and confusion, the people still grieved, deeply. Not just for the Divine—though they _did_ grieve for the Divine—but Anders thought, too, of the people here who had lost loved ones at the Conclave. How many had died in the explosion alone? How many had died in the ensuing chaos, felled by wave after wave of demons spit unceasingly and uncaringly into the mortal world?

Before, the thought might have filled him with bitter anger. Now, he bore it with an empty exhaustion.

He rolled onto his side.

The last few years, he hadn't given much thought to the past, but late at night now memories kept rolling incessantly into his head, like water on the shore of a river undammed. He remembered being 12, so agnonizingly smothered by grief and loneliness that after six months, he'd just started running—tearing down the stairs so fast that he'd felt like he was flying. And the templars had caught him, of course, because it wasn't a _plan_ so much as a child's act of desperation.

They brought him to Irving, and when Irving asked him _why,_ Anders finally broke his self-imposed vow of silence and replied, "I want to go home."

As if anyone was waiting for him there. As if his father wouldn't send him right back.

The next two times had been different—after careful planning he'd managed to get hold of a boat, both times, and cross the lake and actually _evade_ the templars for weeks at a time, which lived on as some of the most heartbreakingly happy and exhilirating weeks in his memory.

And when the templars dragged him back—they always did—he became an expert of being difficult, being a brat, generally making a nuisance of himself whenever possible. He would dig his heels into the dirt; go limp when they tried to drag him forward; wrap his arms and legs around any low-hanging tree branches they passed. The templars bore it, with annoyance, because he was young, and skinny, and probably—he realized later—because Irving had asked them to.

Eventually, of course, patience always wore thin.

On his fourth attempt, he'd nearly drowned straightaway.

Made furious by Karl's transfer to Kirkwall he'd decided _screw the boat_ and just jumped in the damned lake. But swimming lessons had wisely _not_ been a part of their scheduled outdoor time, and Anders had nothing to go on but a vague description of swimming from a story he'd read. He swam, flailing and exhausted, and providence had it that the weather was mild that day, and the water smooth. When he made it to shore, his breathing labored and his body burning, he could have sworn that the lake water that had sloshed into his mouth and nose was, at that moment, sweeter than any wine.

Anders, in his room in Haven, rolled onto his back again. Outside, somewhere, someone had begun to wail. He pressed his pillow against his ears.

It had taken him years to realize how fortunate he was that Irving had been so—sympathetic. As a child he hadn't appreciated Irving's kindness, his attempts to make the Circle feel like home, his endless patience for the unnamed little shit with a penchant for weaselling out. But if Anders had grown up anywhere else—if he had been sent to the _Gallows_ , as a child—

He clutched the pillow tighter. There were worse things, he had come to learn, than solitary confinement.

Though not by much.

  


"...Blondie? You in there?"

Anders blinked. They were on the trail to Redcliffe—getting close, if his memory served. Varric was riding beside him; Cassandra rode ahead, talking with what he assumed was one of Leliana's people. The woods around them were quiet, twittering with the occasional birdsong but little else. Golden light shone down through the treetops.

Anders glared at Varric. "Could you not call me that?" he hissed back. He didn't think Cassandra had noticed, but...

"Old habits," Varric shrugged. He glanced at Cassandra. "She can't hear you," he said. "She's not even listening. She believes you're innocent."

"I _am_ innocent," Anders grouched. Varric threw up his hands in a conciliatory gesture. "Of course," he said.

"What did you _want_?" Anders said.

"Nothing. You looked ready to slide off your saddle, though," Varric said. Anders noticed, then, his own slumped posture. He straightened in his seat.

"I..." he started. "I'm tired. I haven't been sleeping well."

Varric gave a short chuckle. "No shit? I haven't slept well for four years."

Anders shot him a sour look—then noticed that Cassandra had begun to slow up, falling nearly in line with Anders and Varric.

"We are getting close," she said. "Be ready for anything. Fiona may be sincere, but these rebel mages are desperate."

Anders bit the inside of his cheek, slouching in his saddle again. Beside him, Varric laughed.

"Desperate mages! Someone alert the crier, Seeker; I think you're onto something."

Cassandra shot a hard look at Varric. They crossed from woods into open air, then: the outskirts of Redcliffe. Hard to believe, Anders thought, that this city had so recently been beseiged by blight—though the remnants of it hummed under his skin even now, a decade later, and he knew that the poison had seeped deep into the ground wherever darkspawn corpses fell. But it looked almost as prosperous as it ever had, and the people here looked _normal_ —content, even. Had they forgottten what it was like?

He looked down the slopes of the town, past the roads and the buildings, to the bright-sparkling waters of Lake Calenhad. Far across its waters, spiralling toward the sky and _empty_ , was Circle Tower. And here, in Redcliffe, were the rebel mages. Yet, still, in the streets, craftsmen sold their wares, and children ran by with little squeals of laughter as they played their children's games. Children young enough to have been born after the Blight—some, toddling along on unsteady legs or held at their mothers' breasts, young enough to have been born after—after Kirkwall.

Born into a world without circles. So much had changed.

So why did it feel like so _little_?

Because, the stinging in his hand reminded him—mages and templars, darkspawn and blights, none of it would matter if the Breach consumed it all. It was up there, hanging over everything, with more power than he could imagine, or control. And so they had a job to do.

He dismounted, and together they walked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shorter one this time--sorry! Hopefully I'll start updating more frequently soon. I actually do have the whole thing planned out. It's just a matter of finding the time and energy to get it done.


End file.
